EDU 695 Week 3

Jennifer N. Sumner

EDU645: Learning & Assessment for the 21st Century

Instructor: Dr. Jackie Kyger

January 5, 2015

Introduction

Instructional design otherwise called instructional Systems Design could be described as an art of drawing upon the instructional experiences aimed at making the acquisition of knowledge and skills a more appealing, efficient and effective practice. The increased need for educational quality has not only become an institutions’ requirement but both an ethical and the best way of impacting knowledge in the minds of learners (Hardre & Kollman, 2013). Learners have also increasingly become skeptic of the quality of education they receive and at the end of it all, an instructional plan design becomes the most vital tool to bridge the gaps of knowledge that pre-exist before certain lessons or units are taken and the intended knowledge acquisition. According to Power (2009), the process of instructional design mainly consists of determining the current needs of students and developing an end goal bringing in the intervention methods aimed at making the learner come out of such learning with the intended level of knowledge. There are numerous instructional plan design models but this essay shall focus on three only. They include the common Core aligned instructional plan; Understanding by Design-Backwards design; and Madeline Hunter lesson plan.

Madeline Hunter Lesson Plan Model

The model was devised by the late school principal and a perennial educator called Dr. Madeline Hunter. The model consists of a highly structured plan that was designed using repetitive, classic model. The model is based on a premise that students should get it the first time through. Although the model has invariably been used by educators as an evaluation tool, Hunter gives a disclaimer that it should not and also there are many models that can be applied simultaneously instead of sticking to her seven stage model of instructional plan. In her postulation, she argues that learning is increased by repetition otherwise called rehearsal to enable the content to sink in the back yard of the long term memory (Hunter & Hunter, 2004). She insists that, in the plan if a learner incorrectly learnt about something, they ought to eradicate the erroneous information by relearning the content or skill correctly. She also notes that the model is particularly not significant when used to instruct the students who are gifted become they become easily bored and irritated at information that is repeated and not challenging. Thus the model would apply more to average learners who would want several rehearsals before getting it right the first time. The model is divided into three unique levels with seven stages through it.

At level one, the instructor gets the students to set to learn by incorporating two of the stages; setting the objectives and anticipatory set. The objectives enable the students to know where they are aiming and thus stimulate what they are supposed to accomplish. Anticipatory set make the students to get excited and therefore ready to accept instructions. Level two involves direct instruction to students and checking for understanding; the stages include modeled practice where the students are tuned to get it right for the first time through by using processes and demonstrations that can be conceptualized easily. The fourth stage involves checking for understanding where the teachers observe the students’ body language and other reaction that indicate whether they have understood or not; this might be nodding, making sensible explanations when asked questions and so on. The fifth stage under level two is guided practice where the students are given an opportunity to apply whatever they have learnt (Hunter & Hunter, 2004). Level three has two stages which include independent practice and closure. Independent practice allows learners to use whatever they have learnt alongside new information through homework or discussions. The closure stage involves assessing the learners’ accomplishments.

Understanding by Design Model was model was established by Grant Wiggins; the design is premised on setting the instructional goals before choosing the methods to be deployed. The design has typically three stages that are: identifying the results desired at the end of the unit, determination of acceptable levels of evidence that would support the assumption that the desired results have been achieved and lastly designing the activities that will make the desired results happen. Under stage one, there are three elements that are vital; establishment of goals, understanding and essential questions that will provoke understanding (Ledford & Sleeman, 2002). The goals of the course or program should be set as a priority objective in this stage; the goals set must be relevant to the course and the Understanding by Design model would be able to actualize them. The understanding desired results would be the general and specific understanding as well as the predictable misunderstandings. The essential questions will foster inquiry, transfer of learning and understanding. The second stage of the model involves assessing of the evidence; these are performance tasks and other forms of evidence. What specific actions and performance of tasks would communicate that a student has understood as well as other evidence such as answering quizzes, prompts etc. the last stage involves learning plan, where the students get to know much details about the course such as key ideas, implications, expectations etc.

Common Core Aligned Instructional Plan is a modern instructional plan that responds to the unfaltering needs of the educators to use the emerging technologies to make their work easier and much simpler. A number of online options for teachers have been developed and their duty has been reduced a great deal with the only requirement being keying in the data. One such plan is Common Curriculum. A teacher is able to add sections to their lesson plans by editing the provided templates; the editing may add other activities such as projects, homework, events, conferences etc, these can be shared to both students and parents (Webster et al, 2013). When the template has been fully edited, the common core standards search is turned on to search the standards that are aligned to the lesson. This instructional plan benefits such as flexibility of the templates provides, sharing of features among educators in the world, elements can easily be comprehended and the unique URLs for each class make it simpler to access and customize the specific lessons as wanted.

Conclusion

It is now crystal clear that the importance of instructional plans regardless of who was the founder or the time of finding cannot be overemphasized. Among the three plans, I feel that the Common Core Aligned instructional Plan is more convenient and flexible to fit and deliver on the educators’ requirements amid the sky- rocketing technological advancements. Every educator at least owns a digital gadget and thus, the mobility of this kind of plan is something to reckon with. The plan itself is flexible and can be amended with time when the educator feels that changes in the course are needed. The copies can as well be shared among the parents and students and the teacher is able to receive comments promptly regarding the same. The copy is soft and therefore, no need to tire with hard copies (Webster et al, 2013). The ways I would recommend for improvement of this plan is to incorporate the smart phone and mobile versions of the templates to enable easy access from anywhere. As well, the templates should be distributed at cheaper prices to enable all the teachers to access quality templates for their lessons.

References

Hardre, P. L., & Kollmann, S. (2013). Dynamics of Instructional and Perceptual Factors in Instructional Design Competence Development. Journal of Learning Design, 6(1), 234.

Hunter, R., & Hunter, M. C. (2004). Madeline Hunter's Mastery teaching: increasing instructional effectiveness in elementary and secondary schools. (Updated ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

Ledford, B. R., & Sleeman, P. J. (2002). Instructional design system strategies. Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Pub..

Power, M. (2009). A designer's log case studies in instructional design. Edmonton: AU Press.

Webster, B. L., Biagetti, S., & University, S. (2013). Aligning third-grade fractions curriculum with the Common Core State Standards: a teacher's plan for implementation. London: Springer.